


Grandpa Joe's Place

by KairouWatoshimi



Category: Hollywood U: Rising Stars
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4061401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KairouWatoshimi/pseuds/KairouWatoshimi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was making him <em>feel</em> and he wasn’t sure he liked it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grandpa Joe's Place

**Author's Note:**

> **Original prompt from katarinlia (on Tumblr): _Hunt being super drunk and MC dragging him out of the bar._**
> 
> **I was supposed to go on hiatus but apparently, I’m not allowed to. Also, this was supposed to be a prompt for my 100-word drabbles but the prompt was too tempting.**

_Grandpa Joe’s Place_ was a small bar, smack in the middle of the city and yet managed to remain untouched by the glamour of Hollywood. There was an unspoken agreement that despite being a bar in such a city, there would be no loud arguments, no tantrums, and no fights. The bar was a good environment; people came to relax and everyone respected that.

Thomas peered down into the amber liquid without really registering what he was seeing. He swirled the glass with a lazy flick of his wrist before bringing it up to his lips and taking a long sip. The last time he was here, it was to do some serious soul-searching before he finally decided he couldn’t abandon his dreams for Yvonne. When he had walked out of the bar all those years ago, he had left his heart behind and promised himself he would never return.

And look where he was now.

“What’s her name?”

Hand stilling, Thomas paused and lifted his head. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

The bartender, fondly known as Russel, only grinned in response. “People only come here if they have something on their mind,” he told him, reaching over to refill Thomas’ glass. “And you look like you’re thinking of a girl. So what’s her name?”

Usually, Thomas would have never bothered to respond but five—six? He couldn’t remember—glasses of scotch was enough to loosen his tongue. “Jane,” he breathed.

Ah, yes.

_Jane._

He closed his eyes at the reminder, feeling the beginnings of a dull throb in his temples. From the very moment she had first stepped foot into his classroom, Thomas knew she was going to be special. What he did _not_ know, however, was that she was going to have such a strong _personal_ effect on him.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Thomas scowled. “Not particularly.”

“It might make you feel better,” Russel said with a chuckle. Thomas’ scowl deepened in response but Russel only grinned and moved to wipe down the counter with a rag. “What’s she like?”

Thomas closed his eyes and thought about her bright-eyed stares and easy smiles. She was a combination of naivety and maturity, and came into his life like a hurricane, throwing everything he knew into the wind, reordering his life, and reminding him what it was like to _live._ “She’s young,” Thomas finally answered, his voice soft and choked. “Very young.”

“Ah,” Russel said knowingly. “It’s always the young ones that make you think.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose in mock amusement. Ah, if only that was all. “She makes me more than think,” he admitted reluctantly. “She makes me _feel.”_ Of course he usually felt angry and annoyed around her but afterwards—late into the night when he couldn’t sleep—he would think about the pounding of his heart and be reminded of his time with Yvonne.

Ah, Yvonne.

Barely noticing Russel refilling his glass again, Thomas breathed out slowly through his nose. If there was one thing he regretted, it was choosing his career over Yvonne but now...

Now...

He could barely picture her face. What was once a sharp, crisp image of dark brown hair and chocolate colored eyes, Thomas could only see glittering blue eyes and that cheeky, lopsided smirk.

That.

Damn.

Smirk.

He lifted the glass back up against his lips, draining it and sighed. Thomas almost wished he could go back thinking about Yvonne—and _only_ Yvonne; it was so much easier when it was just her. He remembered being around Yvonne, he remembered the feeling of comfort and ease. Before Jane, he had thought _that_ was what love was.

But now...

Now... Being around Jane, he never knew what to expect. She had the ability to make him feel both comfortable _and_ uncomfortable at the same time; his discomfort wasn’t just because she was his student either. Naïve and confident, she took risks without batting an eyelash and expected him to do the same. And this— _this_ —was why he felt the way he did around her. Jane pushed him beyond his limits until he could feel—

—the thrill—

—the exhilaration—

—and remember what it was like to _live._

Thomas groaned and leaned into the counter, cradling his head into his arms and closed his eyes. “I feel sick,” he mumbled. The more rational half of his mind blamed his drinking on an empty stomach while the other half was buzzing with an annoying hum. Somehow, Jane still managed to insert herself into both halves and even drunk, all he could think about was still her.

“Yea,” Russel observed. “You gonna be alright?”

He grunted in response and immediately wished he hadn’t; too much energy and he felt like throwing up. _This is the problem with drinking on an empty stomach,_ he thought distantly. _One second I’m perfectly fine and the next I can’t even remember my own name._

“Grumpy?”

Nothing.

Unknowing to Thomas, Russel simply smiled, leaning over the counter as he slipped the phone out of Thomas’ pocket. Usually, he would never even think to invade someone’s privacy like this but it was _Grandpa Joe’s Place_ and _Grandpa Joe’s_ was where all the magic happens.

* * *

 Jane stared down at her phone, her face twisted up in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Addison asked curiously.

“Well,” Jane said slowly, unsure where to start. “Um. Apparently my boyfriend’s passed out drunk at grandpa Joe’s place.”

Next to her, Ethan blinked and looked up from his laptop, brows furrowing in concern. As Jane’s agent—and friend—he made sure to make it his job to know everything about her. “You have a boyfriend?” he asked. He knew she dated—hell, they’ve even went out twice—but he had no idea that she was currently seeing anyone.

She turned to face him, still looking confused and shook her head in denial. “No,” she replied. “In fact, I don’t even have a grandpa Joe!”

* * *

 “It’s not actually grandpa Joe’s place,” Russel corrected, unable to keep the amused tone out of his voice. “It’s a bar downtown; I can give you the address.”

 _“Oh,”_ Jane said slowly, still sounding confused. _“You still have the wrong person though; I don’t have a boyfriend._ ”

 _Not yet you don’t,_ Russel thought, glancing at Grumpy, still dozing off on his counter. “Your name’s Jane, girly?”

_“Yes.”_

Russel smiled. “Then I don’t have the wrong person. My boy here’s been talking about you.” Only due to his probing, of course, but she didn’t need to know that.

 _“Uh-huh,”_ she murmured, sounding very much like she wasn’t believing a word he was saying. _“What’s his name?”_

Russel hesitated. “Er...” He probably should ask for his customer’s name if he was going to try his hand at matchmaking again but he had never came across this kind of issue before. Usually, the girl on the other end would immediately know exactly who he was talking about or they would hang up and not bother calling back. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I call him Grumpy though... because he’s kind of... uh, grumpy.”

There was a pause. Then: _“Are you making this up?”_ she demanded.

“No!” Russel protested, feeling horrified but knowing that he probably sounded like an idiot on her end. “Look girly, he’s been drinking his sorrows away because of you; I thought it would be nice of me to give you a call.” Girls like to feel wanted, right?

She huffed and Russel had the strangest feeling that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say. _“So I can help you take care of some drunk idiot?”_ she asked. _“No, thank you.”_

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” Russel said quickly, knowing that she was about to hang up

_“What?”_

He closed his eyes, wondering where he went wrong with the conversation. “Do you at least know who I’m talking about?”

_“No.”_

His brows furrowed. “Don’t you want to know who I’m talking about? Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”

_“No.”_

He blinked hard and pulled the phone away from his ear just so he could stare at it in confusion for a second. When _that_ wasn’t giving him any answers, he turned and stared at Grumpy, wondering what was it about this particular woman that attracted the man. With a sigh, he pressed the phone to his ear again. “If you really don’t want to pick him up, that’s fine; I’ll just send a taxi for him.”

_“Okay.”_

This woman... “But um,” Russel said, reaching over to give Grumpy a slight shake only to have his hand slapped away. “He’s sort of... unconscious right now and I don’t know where he lives.”

 _“Then wait for him to wake up!”_ He had never felt so insulted over the phone before; hearing the unspoken “idiot” ringing at the end of her sentence.

Honestly, this woman!

“Mid to late thirties, maybe? He’s wearing a suit!” Russel interrupted quickly. This was becoming less of a matchmaking attempt and more of a way to get Grumpy safely out of the bar. “And he combs his hair over but it’s a bit... messy right now. Does that sound familiar?”

Silence again and for a brief moment Russel feared that Jane may have gotten fed up and had hung up on him. But just as he was about to cut his losses, she asked, _“What’s the address?”_

Russel smiled.

_Ah._

* * *

Jane arrived exactly ten minutes later; though her arrival was silent, Russel, his fellow bartenders, and the lingering customers knew at once she didn’t belong. With thick, glossy black hair and an emerald green, form-hugging dress, she looked like she came straight out of some high class bar or something.

“You are one lucky man, boy,” he told Grumpy, whistling softly. She was also probably one of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. But her attitude could use some improvement. _Then again,_ he thought. It was probably because of her attitude that she could handle Grumpy’s rather sharp tongue.

Sharp eyes scanned the small bar once and then, catching sight of them, Jane began to approach. Hips swaying naturally as she walked, Jane effortlessly turned heads as she made her way towards them. Russel cleared his throat, catching her attention once she was in front of the counter. “You sure he’s not your boyfriend, girly?”

“He’s my professor,” she corrected, not bothering to look over in his direction.

Russel blinked.

Oh...

_Oh!_

Jane tilted her head, eyeing Hunt for a moment as if debating what she was going to do to him. Finally, with a slight sigh, she turned towards Russel and asked, “How much does he owe you?”

Russel blinked. “Ah,” he murmured, looking around for the tab. Once found, he picked it up and slid it over to the counter towards her. Russel watched as Jane looked it over, her brows furrowing. She side-glared at Grumpy as she dug into her purse, pulling out a wad of cash.

“Keep the change,” Jane told him, handing it over to him before turning her complete attention to Grumpy. “Professor,” she said, her voice quiet and soothing as she shook his shoulder. “Wake up. I’m not carrying you to my car.”

Hunt groaned, reaching out with a hand to smack hers away.

Russel watched with wide eyes as she immediately smacked him back in response. There was no hesitation in her movement and Russel wondered just exactly what their relationship really was. It was clear to him that Jane was much younger than Grumpy but she was much too comfortable handling the drunk man to really be his student.

Thomas lifted his head slowly, feeling like it weighed a ton. He blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision. “Who are you?” he asked, squinting up at her face. Jane raised an eyebrow.

“How drunk are you?”

Black hair. Blue eyes. He had a dream about this once but the sharp throb in his temples was telling him that this was most definitely not a dream. Furthermore, he noted, she was also less smirky in his dreams. “Jane.”

“Yes,” she replied, looking unimpressed and amused all at once.

Thomas narrowed his eyes; he wasn’t used to being looked down upon. Usually he could ignore it and continue on with his day but the distracting buzz in his mind was telling him to do otherwise. He reached out—to push her away from him in annoyance, probably—but that particular movement only managed to throw off his already delicate balance. He wobbled dangerously on his seat and grabbed her arm to keep himself upright. “What are you doing here?” he asked instead.

“To pick up my boyfriend, apparently.”

Thomas paused, blinking; her words needing a few seconds to register. When they finally did, he felt his stomach churn and wondered if he was going to throw up. “Oh,” he mumbled, releasing her arm and turning away from her. He slumped back down against the counter, resting his spinning head back onto the counter.

 _Oh my dear boy,_ Russel thought, pretending to wipe an already dry glass. _You got it bad._

Seeing that he was too drunk to respond to her in the witty, sarcastic way she preferred, Jane sighed and walked up to stand closer next to him. “Come on, Tommy boy,” she said, pulling his arm. “Let’s get you home.”

“Home,” Thomas murmured, thinking. But not too hard, of course, he wasn’t sure his head could handle the additional responsibility. “I don’t know where that is.” With her help he stumbled onto his feet, his world tilting dangerous and he leaned into Jane so that she was supporting his weight.

Wrapping an arm around his waist, Jane huffed in annoyance. “Of course you don’t,” she grumbled. “But fortunately for you, _I_ do.” Russel’s ears perked up.

The rational part of his mind lit up in warning since he was quite sure he had never given Jane—or any one of his students, actually—his address but Thomas quickly squashed it down. He found that he quite liked Jane knowing things about him no one else did. “But what about your boyfriend?” he asked, with a disgusted frown; the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I’ll get him next time,” Jane answered, shifting his weight against her again as she slowly maneuvered him towards the exit.

Thomas huffed and then hiccuped. “I don’t think you should go out with him,” he told her. Of course he wasn’t exactly sure which particular admirer of hers was her boyfriend but whoever he was, Thomas was sure that they didn’t match at all. It took an intelligent, sharp-tongued, strong-willed man to deal with Jane. He should know.

“Yea?” she asked distractedly. Typically she would have felt amused by the entire situation—who knew Hunt could get so drunk?—but Jane was currently more concerned about keeping him upright so he doesn’t pull her down with him if he fell. “Who should I go out with, then?”

Thomas scoffed; what an stupid question. “Me.”

Jane paused, her facial expression unreadable as she looked up at him. It was that moment did Russel realize that she probably wasn’t lying before; they really _were_ professor and student and their relationship was so much more complicated than he had originally thought. No wonder, Grumpy had resorted to drinking. It was rather odd, Russel admitted but he was a bartender and had been one for the past thirty years of his life; his job was to serve and listen, not to judge. He watched as the professor swayed on his feet, leaning closer against Jane until their faces were almost touching.

Just as Russel thought they were going to kiss—or something similar—Thomas hiccuped and Jane reached up with a free hand to cover his mouth. “If you throw up on me,” she said, her voice a threatening whisper. “I will introduce your innards to the ground. Got it?”

Thomas nodded slowly. Jane turned around then to nod her thanks to Russel—who almost dropped his glass in surprise. He felt like he was just caught staring. She smiled pleasantly at him, her entire face lighting up in a way he couldn’t describe and Russel wondered if _this_ was why Grumpy was so taken by her. Despite her attitude—which really wasn’t much of an attitude as long as she wasn’t talking to suspicious strangers—she had a confidence about her that easily attracted admirers from far and wide.

A minute later, Jane finally managed to maneuver Thomas out of the bar. She balanced him against her, which wasn’t hard seeing that he had a death grip around her waist, Jane struggled to open her car door. “Come on, professor,” she grunted out. “Get in.”

He didn’t want to; he rather hold onto Jane for the remainder of the night. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“Home,” she answered, lightly pushing him into the backseat. “Your home.”

Thomas blinked slowly. “Home sounds nice,” he breathed as she picked up the dead weight of his legs and rotated them around so he could fit into the car. He squinted, watching as she closed the door softly after him before making her way towards the driver’s side. “Can you drive?” he asked her suspiciously as she started the engine. “Aren’t you twelve?”

Jane met his gaze through the rear-view mirror. “Do I look twelve to you?”

“No,” he answered, sighing unhappily. She looked like she had three heads though but even in his drunken state, Thomas knew he was only seeing things. “I wish you were,” he confessed.

“Oh?” Jane asked, pulling out of the parking space with practiced ease. “Why’s that?”

Thomas frowned, wondering. Now that he thought about it, he found he didn’t really remember. Something about feelings probably.

_Ah._

“So you... so you don’t make me... _feel.”_

“It’s a two-way street, professor,” she told him softly. “You make me feel too.”

He hummed softly and laid down, sprawling himself over the backseat of her car. Thomas closed his eyes, wondering what she meant by that; he barely knew what _he_ had meant. Jane hadn’t bothered turning on the radio so the car ride was quiet and Thomas soon found himself dozing off from the smooth, gentle, almost unnoticeable movement of her driving and the soft hum of the engine. And as if her very presence was enough to fill the small car, Thomas felt as if he was wrapped up in her arms, surrounded by her embrace and scent.

Jane woke him up sometime later, gently pulling him out of the car and back onto his feet. “Why the hell do you live at the very top of the building?” she asked, scowling.

“So I can look down at everyone when I look out the window,” he answered seriously.

She looked up and stared at him for a moment. “For someone who’s been drunk-talking all night,” she finally said, turning away but still glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, “that’s the first honest babble out of you.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about; he’d been honest all night. Alcohol wasn’t going to change that. In fact, wasn’t it supposed to make it more prominent? A little _too_ prominent if you asked the more rational part of his mind.

It took Jane almost fifteen minutes to get Thomas into the building and up the elevator before they finally— _finally_ —made it into the privacy of his condo. She struggled for another five minutes, trying to get his shoes and jacket off which, honestly wasn’t as easy as it first appeared to be since he kept slumping over to the side. When _that_ was finally finished, Jane stood up with a huff, blowing away a strand of loose hair. She didn’t care who it was, she was never, ever, ever dealing with drunk people again. Especially Hunt.

With a grunt, she pulled Thomas back onto his feet and into the direction of his bedroom. Since there weren’t many rooms in the condo, Jane easily found it on her first try. “Ooh, son of a bitch!” Jane swore as she dumped Thomas onto his bed only to have him pull her down with him.

He immediately wrapped himself—arms _and_ legs—around her, effectively trapping her in his bed. “Stay with me?” he asked, feeling his lids growing heavy. “You’re warm.”

Jane sighed. She was more tired than she cared to admit; not only was it _way_ past her usual bedtime, dragging out of the bar and into his condo had proved to be harder than she had anticipated. “You’re not going to like this when you wake up tomorrow,” she told him even as she leaned into him, her hand reaching to grip his shirt as if someone was threatening to rip her away from him.

“Don’t be stupid,” he told her tiredly. Already, the mind-numbing effects of the alcohol was beginning to fade and Thomas was sure he knew where she was coming from. In fact, if he was sober, their positions probably would have been reversed but he still couldn’t bring himself to care.

She laughed, sounding lost and broken. His eyes slid open and he immediately tightened his grip around her, his body wanting to comfort her before his mind has yet to register what was happening.

“All right,” she finally said.

Thomas smiled and buried his nose into her hair.

* * *

 Thomas woke up the following morning with a pounding headache. He groaned, silently vowing that this was the last time he was ever going to be drinking on an empty stomach. Not only does he get drunk two times faster than normal, he always wakes up the next morning like death had just visited. He moved to rub his eyes only to notice that his right arm was trapped under a heavy, warm weight.

Thomas blinked, slowly turned his head, and immediately froze; memories of his drunken actions from the previous night rushed back, hitting him in the gut like a ton of bricks. He swallowed hard; forget never drinking on an empty stomach again, he was never drinking again, _period._ Heart pounding, Thomas moved to pull his arm out from under her as gently as he could.

Despite his careful movements, Jane moaned softly, shifting with him and wiggled herself closer against him. Thomas looked down at her, feeling an emotion he couldn’t describe squeeze his heart, choking him with the intensity. The morning sunlight, filtering through his window fell on her, surrounding her like a halo and Thomas thought she looked so very, very beautiful.

Was this what it felt like to wake up with her next to him in the mornings?

Thomas knew this was wrong—so very wrong—and at the end of the day, no matter what he felt towards her, she was still his student and he was still her professor. But...

But...

Choosing his career over Yvonne broke his heart, what would happen if he did the same thing with Jane? His feelings for Jane went so much deeper than his feelings for Yvonne; Yvonne made him happy while Jane made him feel... well, _everything._

 _Live in the moment,_ he thought to himself, shakily reaching towards her with his free hand, softly brushing loose strands of hair away from her face. Unsurprising, her skin was soft under his touch but Thomas found that he wanted to know more about her; how she felt, what she thought, her dreams, her passion, everything, everything, _everything._

“Jane,” he whispered.

She hummed softly, lashes fluttering open as she woke up. “Hey you,” she greeted with a tired mumble. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” he whispered back, finger still stroking her cheek. Thomas watched as her eyebrows knitted together in confusion at his odd behavior. She reached up and rested a warm hand on his forehead. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

He sighed and leaned towards her until his forehead was resting against hers. “Happy,” he finally answered.

**Author's Note:**

> **This was supposed to be all light-hearted and happy and fluffy and shit but obviously that didn’t happen. Why don’t stories end up the way I want them to? Maybe next time.**


End file.
